Dinosaurs -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Paleontologists -- Fiction; Science fiction
Instantly Morton was on his feet and the two were staggering out of the
room, into the immense, dusky corridor outside. Down it they ran, for
a moment, then suddenly stopped. For from ahead had come the sound of
immense steps, while some vast black bulk had suddenly blotted out the
great square of crimson light at the corridor's open end, ahead. Then,
as it came on, they saw the great thing clearly--a gigantic brontosaur
that had halted momentarily a hundred feet down the corridor from
them. A moment it surveyed them with small, glaring reptilian eyes,
then raised its mighty neck and head with a vast, hoarse bellow and
thundered straight down upon them.
6
As the colossal beast charged down upon them Rowan stood motionless,
stunned, seeing as though in some nightmare dream the great snaky neck
and head, the gigantic, trampling feet, and hearing in his ears the
deep bellow of the oncoming monster. Then suddenly Morton had leapt
forward, beside him, uttering a high, harsh-voiced cry, a cry at which
the thundering brontosaur suddenly slowed, stopped. A scant twenty feet
from them it stood, regarding them suspiciously, and Morton turned
swiftly to the other.
"Come on, Rowan!" he cried. "I heard the lizard-men direct these beasts
with that cry--I think it'll hold this one till we get past!"
Together they ran forward, down the corridor toward the gigantic
brontosaur, which was regarding them with its small eyes in seeming
perplexity, its head swaying to and fro on its sinuous neck as they
neared it. Now they were to the great beast, pressing past it and
between its great body and the corridor wall, its mighty bulk looming
above them awe-inspiringly in the great corridor. As they ran past
it the huge beast half turned, half stepped toward them, but as
Morton repeated his strange high cry it halted again. The next moment
Rowan breathed for the first time in seconds, for they were past the
brontosaur and racing on down the corridor toward its open end.
As they neared that end they slowed their pace, crept forward more
cautiously, until they were peering out into the great, crimson-lit
street. The broad avenue seemed quite deserted and empty, and they
sprang out into it, toward the central plaza where lay the lake of
fire and its ascending and descending disk. But suddenly Morton
turned, pointed back. Far down the street behind them a great mass of
huge figures was moving toward them--a mob of mighty dinosaurs and
lizard-riders which was coming rapidly up the avenue.
"They're coming now!" cried Morton. "They've gathered--they're
ready--they're going to go up the shaft, _now_!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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